Psychology services for intellectual disability

Intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder) is a cognitive impairment that affects many West Australian children. Parents, teachers or psychologists often identify that a child has intellectual difficulties when comprehending concepts. The infant may also have difficulty adjusting to different social or life skills. When observed as an ongoing problem mums or educators often seek help from an experienced developmental psychologist. The psychoanalytical therapist will look for neurological deficits when assessing for intellectual disability.

The Commonwealth Government of Australia have described three key criteria to evaluate intellectual disability.

Impairment in intellectual functioning. Areas of cognitive development and learning such as:

Deficits in adaptive functioning that cause a child to not progress through developmental and social milestones. An example of a developmental milestone not being reached could be not learning to read or write at school.

Intellectual or adaptive impairments occurring during early childhood development.

What to do if you determine your child may have an intellectual disability?

Discuss your concerns with your child’s school teachers or general practitioner (GP). We can also help advise, assess and treat your child. Our therapists recommend writing down which social or life skills your child has not learnt in the classroom or at home.

Checklist for intellectual disability

Using the checklist below will help our psychologist team during the diagnostic process.

1. Does your child have difficulty solving educational problems?

2. Does your child have impaired planning or judgment?

3. Does your child have difficulty listening to instructions in the classroom?

4. Does your child have problems speaking to friends at Western Australian Schools?

5. Does your child reason logically when thinking about homework?

6. Is your child extremely forgetful?

7. Does your child take a long time to think of an answer teachers’ questions (cognitive processing speed deficits).

8. Can your child identify and determine the difference between accurately objects and categorise them without thinking?

9. Does your child have abstract reasoning ability similar to those in his/her School Grade?

Evaluating your child’s social awareness of other children’s thoughts, feelings and emotional experiences.

Determining your toddler’s life skills such as; personal care, self-management of behaviour and school and work organisation.

Assessing your infant’s communication skills involving social skills, problem-solving in Primary School playgrounds and ability to make and maintain friendships in the classroom and amongst relatives and friends of caregivers or parents.

Diagnostic surveys of parents: A parent survey will help determine whether you child has difficulty following or accepting instructions. You may have experienced these deficits when parenting your child.

An Educational S.W.A.T Team for your child.

Focused Education’s psychology services are part of our System of Care process. Our experienced specialist teachers, speech pathologists(SLP), occupational therapists(OT) and psychologists work together to achieve the best possible result. Focused Education’s was founded by Martyn Drysdale, a specialist teacher with a learning difficulty. Our mission is to help children, teenagers and adults with learning disabilities world wide.

We are the “Learning Difference Specialists”.

We invite you to get in touch with us on

(08) 61887669 or complete the Contact Us Form below.

CONTACT US TODAY BECAUSE WE CAN HELP YOUR CHILD

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